Which are what exactly? The state has been setting record surpluses.

Housing is very expensive, but that's due to a failure to build.

Higher property taxes doesn't reduce the cost of ownership or make housing more affordable.

This is like saying we should rise the tax rate on food because people are starving in the street

Nothing shows that great surplus like an exponentially increasing debt.

What a bright boy you are

https://www.statista.com/statistics/187867/public-debt-of-th...

You could consider being more humble and polite, especially if you're going to be wrong. (Note that they said _state_, your numbers are national).

> Housing is very expensive, but that's due to a failure to build.

The low maximum property tax rate and systematic failure to tax full value created by Prop 13 is a reason for the failure to build.

(Now, actually, I think residential property tax is a horribly regressive tax, and its better to fund government by progressive income taxes, but there needs to be a funding allocation formula that gives local government more of an incentive for development; California has adopted some limits on discretion and consequences for not meeting targets as a stick, but that's not enough to encourage good positive planning.)

>The low maximum property tax rate and systematic failure to tax full value created by Prop 13 is a reason for the failure to build.

Only by indirect argument. IF homeowners were taxed more, they would be more sensitive to housing costs in general, and perhaps more inclined to expanding the housing stock.

Given that the government is funded, this would simply be a punitive tax incentive to motivate policy.

I don't particularly buy the lack of local government incentive. New development is already taxed at substantially higher rates relative to older stock due to prop 13. If expanding the tax base were a major driver of policy, then we would expect to be building already.

People don't block commercial construction because it raises property values. They block residential construction because it lowers their property values. You get an imbalance of jobs to housing and then people complain about expensive housing.

One issue with prop 13 has been a major shift in (property) tax burden from large commercial to residential owners.

Also, a big shift in overall revenue from property tax to income tax. This is less stable source and tends to benefit the investor class over W2 earners.

I tend to agree that companies that never die should not have the same protections that homeowners or small businesses do.

My point was rather that props through 13 isn't what's driving the cost of housing up in California. In fact it does the opposite.

If Prop 13 were removed, taxes for new home buyers would go down, enabling even higher costs.

Prop 13 is one factor that's driving the cost of housing up in California.

Vacant lots are taxed based on their purchase price, so there's no real reason to develop them when the land value keeps on rising while the taxes don't. Commercial zoned buildings aren't affected by prop 13, which leads to more revenue for the cities, hence them preferring commercial development to housing.

All that prop 13 does is favor people who bought real estate decades ago, at the detriment of everyone else.

I am extremely skeptical that the few vacant lots are enough to counterbalance what would essentially be a massive tax break for every new homebuyer.

I'm in favor of everyone paying taxes fairly to get high quality city services, instead of having people with large increases in property value getting an unfair tax subsidy.

This brings things back to taxation of realized vs unrealized gains. If you want fair Taxes, we should probably do away with property tax entirely, and focus more on income taxes themselves.

The people with the most wealth tend to pay much less (proportionally) in income tax. Most people find this unfair.

I don't think that is true. The bottom half generally pays zero income tax. The proportional income tax increases continuously. There is no group that makes more and pays less proportionally if you look at the actual data. Here is the percent income paid (after all deductions) for different groups.

You can always argue that the proportion should be even higher, but the proportion of income is certainly not lower

https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-tax-changes-1979

People that are wealthy enough don't really pay income tax.

For example, one loophole during the ZIRP era was that one could get a very low interest rate loan (<1% APR, so effectively lower than inflation) against appreciated securities and use that money tax free. If the wealthy person passes away and gives the appreciated securities to their heirs, their heirs have a step-up cost basis which is the market value at the time of transfer, so no taxes are ever paid on the appreciation of the stock. The heirs could then turn around and settle the loan, tax free, as their cost basis matches the market value.

Warren Buffet famously pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary.

https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/01/warren-buffett...

This is an anecdote but there's no reason to expect that this doesn't apply to his classmates.

So, yes; given all the rebates and loopholes and shenanigans that the rich and mega-rich can use, the proportion of income is lower.

Then you don't know the real estate speculation game. Investors buy vacant plots at the periphery of a city for cheap and just... wait. When it is time to sprawl you have to pay huge sums to them for land that is empty. The tax break that you think is going to the home buyer merely raises the value of this land and the investor is getting the money instead of the local government that managed the city.